Document Accessibility

Here's a general overview of the role and the guiding principles which help us make documents more accessible!

As an Accessibility Assistant, it will be your role to ensure electronic documents are accessible. This refers to how easily a person with disabilities can access the material in electronic documents like their able-bodied peers. For this role, electronic documents include Word docs, PDFs, PowerPoints. The 4 main components of document accessibility include:

• Appropriate Heading Structure- information displayed in labeled sections and navigable format. 

• Alternative (Alt) Text- images and graphics have descriptions of their content.

• OCR/PDF Tags- PDF content is labeled by appropriate tagging for reading order of text

• Math Equations- Math is created in LaTeX or MathType for MathML

Once documents are made accessible, they can be uploaded to Canvas and read by all students.

Building your STARS Team Vocabulary

Accessibility comes with a whole new set of words and concepts to become familiar with, here are a few things to know going in that will make your job less confusing later on. Feel free to review this list as needed, and add or suggest new additions to the LAA or Jordan if you notice something missing!